Sioux City Art Center April 2021

Our first outing of 2021 was to Sioux City, Sioux Falls, and Fargo. The Sioux City Art Center, a lovely building designed by Joseph Gonzalez of Skidmore, Owings and Merrill and opened in 1994. The circular entrance court is reminiscent of the Richard Meier court of the High Museum, with stairs that circle the court and provide a refreshing break from art viewing. Lobbies outside the gallery are pleasant; one displayed midwestern ceramics. The permanent collection includes artists like Thomas Hart Benton and Kaethe Kollwitz that were not on view when we visited. We did see the very pale gold ethereal Grant Wood Corn Room murals, whose interest to me is primarily in their original hotel ballroom setting and history of being papered over, restored, and transferred to the museum, where they are housed in a meditative setting.

The main exhibition was 20 Artists 20 Parks. Twenty artists affiliated with Iowa State University each made work associated with one of the 20 state parks in Iowa. I thought this was an engaging and appealing concept and the work mostly had a kind of summer pleasantness, several of them versions of landscape. I was particularly taken by Deborah Pappenheimer's Architectural Navigators, 2019, a quilt of birds and flora associated with Walnut Woods State Park, and with Kristen Greteman's strips of blue cyanotype photography mounted on plexiglas, for Wildcat Den State Park 

Deborah Pappenheimer, Architectural Navigators, 2019, hand-dyed organza, embroidery thread, commercial fabric

Architectural Navigators, detail

Kristen Greteman, Wildcat State Park: A Deep Map, 2019, digital photography, cyanotype photography on Thai Kozo paper mounted on acrylic

The permanent collection focuses on regional artists, mostly from the upper Midwest. We appreciated seeing a painting by our Kansas City friend Marcus Cain, as well as work by Keith Jacobshagen, Larry Schwarm, and Gary Bowling. Catherine Ferguson made creative sculptures from everyday sources and  Stephen Dinsmore's Spring, the Pink Flowers seemed appropriate for the season.

Gary Bowline, Loess Hills Brushing in Winter Afternoon, 2000, oil on canvas

Marcus Cain, Ritual, 2018, acrylic on canvas

Catherine Ferguson, Laura, Sweet One, Van Rijn, 2013, bronze

Stephen Dinsmore, Spring, the Pink Flowers, 2007, oil on canvas

 Jennifer Homan's pastel landscapes are vibrant with huge skies, reminiscent of Jacobshagen; my photographs don't capture it. And I was somehow touched and befuddled by Christopher Meyer's Masked Consciousness, cast iron, an image that could only be from 2020.

Christopher Meyer, Masked Consciousness, 2020, cast iron

The permanent collection also displayed smaller works on paper by earlier artists, including early directors of the Art Center. It reminded me that each region has its home artists, whose work has special value to the community and that a museum serves the community by celebrating those artists. As an out-of-towner, I left feeling challenged in that I was unfamiliar with many of the artists, at the same time the works on view had been surprisingly accessible.